The invention relates to combine harvesters of the type having axial flow rotary separators and in particular to an improved means of transferring crop material from the feeder house of a header to the threshing portion of an approximately horizontally and fore-and-aft disposed single rotor separator.
The difficulties of achieving a smooth and efficient transfer of crop material from a feeder house to the separator of such machines is well known and is evidenced by the number of patents issuing in recent years and directed to this problem. Feeding the infeed portion of the rotor undershot fashion is a potentially compact arrangement and efficient in that crop material can be transferred directly from the feeder conveyor into engagement with the conveying surfaces of the feed rotor. However, in known undershot feeding arrangements the widths of the feeder conveyor and of the separator are approximately equal and the problem of transferring material from one to the other are not complicated by disparity in width. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,626,472, Rowland-Hill and 4,087,953, Wilson and Hengen. In Rowland-Hill, although a relatively wide chain and slat conveyor is used in the feeder house, the separator comprises a pair of side-by-side rotors so that the separator as a whole is also relatively wide, matching the width of the feeder conveyor. In Wilson, a patent sharing a common assignee with the present invention, a single rotor separator is disclosed but through efficient use of a pair of side-by-side augers in the feeder house, adequate feeder house capacity is obtained in a width approximately equal to the diameter of the separator.
In some situations, the use of a chain and slat-type conveyor in the feeder house may be preferred, and typically, in a combination of matched capacity, the feeder house will be much wider than the diameter of a single rotor separator. A problem of convergence of material then arises and efforts to overcome this problem continue but have so far concentrated on a type of end feeding arrangement in which the feeder conveyor delivers material into the forward face of an infeed rotor, an arrangement in which there is a less natural transfer from feeder conveyor to infeed rotor and even, in some cases, a tendency for the infeed rotor to reject rather than accept material. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,464,419, Knapp et al and 3,827,443, Drayer both disclose end feeding arrangements and both have, as is typical, a generally frustoconical transition housing surrounding the infeed rotor and receiving the discharge from the feeder conveyor through an opening in a forward bulkhead.